


We Roll Tonight

by gnome_claireic



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Ending, Amnesia, Choose Your Own Adventure, Concussions, Epilogue, Friends With Benefits, I’m so sorry about the incredibly bad joke in the middle of the sex scene, M/M, Memory Loss, Porn, background Boone Jenner/Nick Leddy/Brandon Saad, magical healing cock (but like ironically), totally invented results of a fictional game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-11-26 16:17:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20933117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnome_claireic/pseuds/gnome_claireic
Summary: Some secret squirrel secret ending epilogues to accompany For Those About To Roc, We Salute You.





	1. Boone Jenner/Ryan Murray (friends w benefits in a Jenner/Leddy/Saad AU-niverse)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Firalla11](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firalla11/gifts).
  * Inspired by [For Those About to Roc, We Salute You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20840633) by [shihadchick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shihadchick/pseuds/shihadchick). 

> Because what's a Choose Your Own Adventure story without some secret endings? And these are, cough, some of the 'happy endings' to accompany the original fic.
> 
> This will make the most sense if you follow the links directly from the appropriate sections of [For Those About To Roc](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20840633), but you could just read these as standalones if you prefer. Thanks for playing along!
> 
> (The title, of course, is also from AC/DC)

* * *

[**April 2019**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20840633/chapters/49542950#2D)

After game four, the locker room wasn’t quiet, exactly, but it was quieter than it’d been for a while, certainly quieter than any of their wins. And being tied in the series felt a whole lot different than tying it had, or even going up by one. There’d just been quiet determination, and Boone had looked around the room and had complete faith in his guys, known that they were going to do everything it took to battle back from this, to shake off the bitter taste of losing in their own barn for the first time all playoffs. 

There was no quit in them, and Boone had been doing this too long—had been through more than enough shit by now—to give too much weight to one game, one period, really, when they were still in it, still at the point of reach out and grab it, no fear and everything to win. 

But it had been a long day, for all that this one hadn't gone past regulation, and Boone was _tired_. He hadn’t been able to feel much of anything until the time the post game adrenaline wore off and he was walking to the players garage, with all the post-game media done and shrugged off like the coat he didn't really need—and fuck, finally, they were still playing when it was warming up enough to not need a coat—and that was when it hit him, at last; frustration and exhaustion and all those niggling hurts.

And they’d all been honestly earned, every bruise from a hit or a block, and every bit of muscle fatigue, although it grated to have put that much work in without getting the result they wanted. They just had to keep it up and keep getting better, he knew that as well as any of them did, and they didn’t need Torts to tell them that, either. 

Boone wondered, tiredly, if that was the self-motivation stuff Torts kept telling the he was expecting them to develop. Right then it just felt like a good reason to sleep for the entirety of the day they had off between games. 

"Want me to drive?" Ryan asked, speaking at last. 

He hadn't said a lot; hadn't had to, had just exchanged sympathetic grimaces with Boone and Josh and the rest of the boys, clapped a couple of shoulders and leaned against the wood of his stall, looking too polished in his suit compared to the rest of them standing around sweaty and shirtless, and oh, for that moment Boone felt sharply just how much they missed him. 

He was still around, as much as he could be, but it sucked that he couldn't be out on the ice with them, that he had to watch and let it gnaw at him that he wasn't right there with them, separated by the neat suit and tie and his general air of unruffled calm. Boone knew as well as anyone how much it sucked to sit out, so it wasn't like he was going to make Ryan feel worse about it. But looking at Ryan’s empty stall between periods bit like a knife sometimes, and Boone knew he had to be worrying about it too, knowing that they’d be better if he was out there with them. 

But it also wasn't like Boone was going to complain about a few minutes peace to recenter himself on the drive home, and it was a way to let Ryan help that Boone could give him, easily, so he just tossed him the keys, a slow underhand throw that Ryan fielded easily.

"Multisport athlete, eh?" Boone joked, and Ryan just snorted and said, "Do I look like Andy?"

He didn't, of course, but Boone wasn't going to go near that whole situation. Ryan and Josh had been hooking up, occasionally, before things got serious with Josh and Zach and Luc, and Ryan was a little prickly about that still, for all that he said that he didn't mind.

It was a little less convincing than the way he kept telling Boone that he was just fine with Brandon and Nick coming over when they were in town, or on their bye weeks, or when they were just already free for summer—although Boone was being a supportive boyfriend and hoping that Nick, at least, would have another week to play. Just one, though. 

But Brandon was down in the Carolinas—a planned vacation with his family that had neatly dovetailed into catching up with Nick as well, funny how that had worked out—so Boone was flying solo for the next little while. He wasn't upset, and he wasn't hurt; they really were functioning pretty well as a flexible pair-or-three, but he had to admit he would have been entirely on board with the idea of getting some quick distraction before passing out for the evening to recover and reset.

Then again, he still had his right hand, and that was going to have to be good enough, especially since the night before he was facing a potential elimination game was not exactly the time to bug your boyfriend for phone sex. 

To pass on good wishes, sure, that was totally fine, and Boone had face-timed Nick after his own nap, had been entirely unsurprised that Brandon had snuck into his hotel room, the two of them planning to watch the Jackets game together at least. Boone just wished he'd been able to bury one this time. 

He blinked, and realized they were home, and that Ryan was waiting none-too-patiently for Boone to get up and out of the car.

"Right," he said, and trailed after Ryan into the house, his backpack bumping against his hip as he did.

He expected Ryan would head into the living room, maybe; either to watch a little TV or pick up his guitar, or maybe even go straight to bed, but instead Ryan turned like he was about to go into Boone's bedroom, crowding him up against the door frame, his eyes hot.

"Hi?" Boone said, blinking at him. He must looked dumb; he certainly felt dumb, and he had no idea what Ryan was doing.

"You look like you need to get out of your head for a bit," Ryan told him bluntly. "Don't argue with me, I know you, Boone."

Boone narrowed his eyes at him. "So what are you suggesting, Ry?"

Ryan shrugged, slow and careful, still taking pains not to jar his back, and Boone abruptly stopped even half-heartedly trying to push back, newly wary of hurting him by accident. 

Ryan rolled his eyes. "I'm fine. Or, at least, you can't make any of it worse, okay? Your boys’re still in Raleigh, right?"

"Yep," Boone said, trying not to give away that he had some assumptions about what Ryan was maybe offering, and that he was a little too excited about those ideas.

"And you guys are still okay doing the whole, uh, open relationship thing, then?" Ryan asked, and Boone went hot and cold all over. It was exactly what he'd been hoping for, wishing, _missing_, and he'd genuinely never thought it would be on the table again.

"Yeah, we are, but are _you_ sure?"

Breaking up with Ryan had sucked, and admittedly Boone was pretty sure it had sucked more for him than it had for Ryan, but he didn't want to, like, make Ryan feel shitty about any of that again. They'd gotten past all of that before Saader even went back to Chicago. 

Ryan shrugged.

"I'm bored, I can’t do _anything_ useful right now, you look like you need to feel better, and I can help. Especially when your boys aren't here to do it."

Boone looked at him, mulling that over. He'd respected Ryan's need to not be tied down, to not commit to a romantic relationship when it could endanger their friendship and potentially even their working relationship. They were on good footing, and fucking that up wasn't worth an easy orgasm, no matter how badly Boone wanted to say the hell with the consequences, _yes_. 

"And if we do that, what is this, then?"

Ryan reached out, cupped his hand around the line of Boone's jaw, his thumb rubbing the wrong way against Boone's beard, the hair rasping against his skin. 

"It's two people making each other feel good because they can. A fuck you kind of fuck to, uh, the rest of the world, I guess."

"I don't want to make things weird," Boone said slowly. He missed Ryan's hands sometimes, missed being able to kiss him when he was right there, even though he knew well enough all the reasons they wouldn't have worked out long term, even if Ryan had ever wanted to commit to that. 

"I like sex," Ryan reminded him, "I just don't want, you know. Anything more than that. You know I love you, man," and he did; Boone knew that like it was the bedrock their apartment was built on, because it was the foundation for their friendship that meant they'd weathered the changes from teammates to friends to roommates to lovers and then back to just friends so smoothly that half the guys in the room now didn't know they'd ever been anything but. 

"Love you too, Murr," Boone said, and he leaned in, pressed his lips to Ryan's, working their way into an open-mouthed kiss. "And god, fuck it, yeah, let's do this."

Ryan kissed him back, hard, both hands on Boone's face like he was trying to memorize the shape of him, his beard, the position of his teeth and the swipe of his tongue. 

"Great, awesome. Now get naked, you were so fucking close tonight and someone should suck your dick for it."

"Jesus," Boone said, eyes widening. He hadn't forgotten how filthy Ryan could be in the bedroom, entirely, except maybe he had. Just a little. "What would you have done if I had scored?"

Ryan gave him a look like Boone was a particularly slow child taking his first spin around the ice, one who hadn't worked out how to stop or turn yet and was rapidly approaching the boards. "Suck your dick twice? I don’t know, c'mon man, get it out already."

"Really feeling the romance here," Boone joked, but he also dropped his pants, and Ryan went to his knees as fast as anyone who was also rehabbing a back injury possibly could, and just as quickly, all of the blood left Boone's head and rushed to parts decidedly south. 

"Less joking, more porn noises please," Ryan said, leaning in to nip at Boone's hip, working his way inward, and Boone was very sure it was no accident that his cheek bumped up against Boone's skin a couple times on the way. The faintly prickling pressure of Ryan's beard brushing against him was more arousing than painful, reminded him of all the places Ryan’d given him beard burn in the past, made Boone feel like he was already closer to the edge than he quite liked to admit. 

But then again, him and Ryan had always been good together.

They were good on the ice and off it, good hustling pool or wing-manning each other at bars, although it was probably fair to say that Ryan had played wingman a lot more often than Boone had. Not that Ryan ever had any trouble in picking up on his own. But they'd had a lot of fun over the years, and some of that had been times when they'd found someone hot who wanted to go home with both of them, and some of those times they just… hadn't bothered with the third person. 

Boone wasn't a kid anymore, he didn't need the plausible deniability or the distractions. He knew what he liked and he knew how to get it, and if he wasn't in a position to distract himself by holing up with either or both of his boyfriends, then getting his dick sucked by his best friend was not any kind of downgrade in the slightest. 

"Boone," Ryan said pointedly, knocking him out of his own head, and breathing hot right over the head of his dick. It felt amazing, and that punched a reflexive groan out of him, low and rumbling, because fuck, _fuck_ he'd missed this. 

"That's more like it," Ryan said, and swallowed him down.

Boone jerked, his hips stuttering forward automatically, and bit his own fist as Ryan slid forward, till his nose was pressed up against Boone's belly, his mouth and throat full of Boone's dick, and wow, Boone was not going to last at _all_.

“Fuck,” Boone said, with feeling, and he shuddered helplessly as Ryan mumbled something in response, completely incomprehensible other than the vibrations it sent through him.

Like it was a reflex, Boone’s hands went into Ryan’s hair, one curved around the back of his head, his thumb brushing over the top of his ear, the nail scratching through the carefully shaved hair, only just now starting to grow out. Ryan must’ve gotten it touched up right before the playoffs, Boone thought, a little nonsensically, and then groaned, losing his train of thought as Ryan’s tongue did something that was possibly still illegal in some states.

“Duke’s a good influence, huh?” Boone said, his voice sounding steadier than he’d thought it would. That was a pleasant surprise. He was enjoying every second of this, but he didn’t want it to be over too soon; he wanted to put off having to think or feel about anything else for as long as possible. Even if that meant having a conversation with himself while Ryan—fuck, Boone had to lock his knees as they threatened to give out—while Ryan worked him over so spectacularly. 

“What?” Ryan said, pulling off and looking up at him, brows drawn together. He looked genuinely confused—apparently Boone’s logic wasn’t as obvious as he’d thought—but Boone was having trouble noticing much more than the way his lips were wet and a little swollen, the way he couldn’t stop licking them, and Boone’s dick jerked reflexively, spilling more precome, and god, they were going to have to clean up later, but right now—

“Your hair,” Boone gritted out, although his hands stayed gentle as they played with strands of Ryan’s hair. “It looks good, Duke’s guy knows what he’s doing.”

“Oh, that,” Ryan said, and Boone could hear the eye-roll in his tone, “Thank you? Now, if you don’t mind, I’m kind of in the middle of something here,” and he slid his palm up Boone’s shaft illustratively, fingers tightening at the crown. 

Boone’s response to that dissolved into a helpless groan. 

He wasn’t even sure what he would’ve said, just running his mouth for the sake of not letting anyone else have the last word, maybe, but—fuck, it was so hard to think when Ryan was right there, doing that.

He could see Ryan’s throat working as he swallowed, could see the way his jaw worked and he could feel the other half of the feedback loop so intensely; the head of his dick bumping against Ryan’s soft palate, against the side of his mouth, and when Boone brought his hand around to cup Ryan’s face he could feel the blunt pressure of his dick through Ryan’s cheek. That visceral recognition was somehow one of the hottest things that had happened to him for a while, and Boone shut his eyes and shuddered hard, coming in long slow pulses, letting the orgasm roll through him.

Ryan cleaned him up, careful and attentive, and Boone was still a little shaky by the time he was done, by the time that Boone extended a hand and helped haul Ryan back to his feet.

“Thanks,” he said softly, and hugged Ryan tight, hiding his face against the side of Ryan’s neck for a second, blinking back the water standing in his eyes. He’d—needed that a little more than he’d quite realized.

“But, shit,” Boone added, as it dawned on him at last, “you didn’t—fuck, sorry, you didn’t get off yet, and I didn’t even warn you—”

Ryan clutched him back just as tightly, and Boone thought belatedly about how this hadn’t just been for him after all, really. God knew he didn’t want to know what it had to be like, sitting out this long and not able to do anything but watch the rest of them, watch and get closer and closer and just hope they could hang on long enough.

And that was a metaphor and a half, Boone thought, swallowing slightly hysterical laughter. 

“It’s fine,” Ryan said, and Boone even believed he meant it. “If I couldn’t tell by now—besides, I offered.”

“Still,” Boone argued, and now he’d caught his breath he was thinking that he was still in the mood, and that he wanted so much to do something for Ryan, too, and also that they didn’t have a game or practice tomorrow, and wasn’t that a small mercy. He did not think about the fact they were only a game away from a must-win situation now, that it was fifty fifty-now that they were half way to done, after such a promising start. 

There was time to think about all of that later. 

“You wanna call your boys or something?” Ryan asked, and if his grip on Boone had slackened at all Boone would have understood it, but it didn’t, and that was a comfort all on its own. 

Boone had learned, through experience both painful and otherwise, that he needed to trust Ryan when he said things; that Ryan might try to make things easier for him and was generally obliging and open and easy to be around, but what he wasn’t was a pushover or a liar. And whatever he offered, it was offered sincerely, and with no strings attached that Boone hadn’t been involved in tying in the first place.

“Nah,” Boone said, confident in his answer. They’d texted a little, but as much as it would’ve been nice to see them or talk to them, it could wait. No one’s feelings were getting hurt over any of this, that was for sure. “I’ll catch up with them later.”

“Uh,” Ryan said, and Boone could read that one, too. Ryan was wavering, and Boone was more than happy to make the choice for him. 

“C’mon,” Boone said. “Let’s go to bed.” He ran a possessive hand down Ryan’s back, not shy about letting his palm trail over the curve of his ass. He could feel Ryan was hard, pressed up against him, trembling a little with tension and arousal, and that made the decision for him, too. “I’m not the only one who needs to stop thinking tonight.”

“Well, who am I to turn down getting my dick sucked,” Ryan said philosophically. 

Boone dug his fingers into Ryan’s ass in response, enjoying the firm muscle, the way it made his own dick twitch hopefully again as well. Easy, he told himself.

“I was thinking you could fuck me?” Boone suggested, keeping his tone easy. He wanted it; he wanted it bad and Ryan could probably hear that in his voice, but he also wanted to make sure Ryan knew it was fine to want that, that it wasn’t just stress and being too turned on to think straight. 

“Fuck, next time lead with that,” Ryan told him, and Boone grinned, ready to put the frustrations of his day firmly behind him, to let Ryan take him to bed and give them both some respite.

* * *

[THE END](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20933117#work_endnotes)

* * *


	2. a couple of Josh Anderson/Pierre-Luc Dubois futures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's one point of divergence in this chapter - same as in the main fic, you can either roll a dice or just pick which link to follow.

[**December, 2016**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20840633/chapters/49542950#2B)

It wasn't that they weren't taking practice seriously—that was basically impossible, with Torts, which most of the time Josh wasn't complaining about. At least you always knew where you stood _and_ had a good enough chance at improving the view, if nothing else.

But a ten game winning streak—and it sent a shiver of pure pleasure down Josh's spine any time he thought about it, because how fucking cool was that?—did tend to give everyone a bit more of a spring in their step, and sometimes that translated to a little more fucking around in practice. 

At least, he was hoping that was all that was to blame, but in the immediate aftermath things were a little bit hazy, and the only thing he was absolutely certain of was that someone had clipped him in the side of the head with a puck, and that it hurt like the nine hells.

Things had been chaotic enough in the drill they'd been running that no one was totally sure who'd even touched the puck last, the only thing they were all sure of was that it hadn't been Jonesy because otherwise Josh's ears would be ringing even harder than they already were. He'd been lurking right on the goal line, waiting for a tip, while the rest of his lineys milled around in front of the net, but whoever touched the puck it must've deflected at least once to kick up and clip him in the ear. 

Not that it mattered, really, whose shot it had actually been. All that mattered was Josh having to get Booner and Fliggy to help him off the ice until he felt less shaky on his skates, and then there'd been a long and boring and kinda painful session in the trainers rooms where they'd prodded him and poked him and run him through the concussion protocol twice just to check. At least, he thought it was twice. It probably wasn't a good sign that he wasn't totally sure about that part. 

He did feel better by the time the docs let him go—tender and bruised and sore, with an obvious lump just above his ear—but otherwise mostly fine, close enough to normal after he'd had a few minutes to shake it off that he'd tried to argue for being allowed to play their next game. After that first bad minute, the headache really hadn't felt as crushing, and Josh crossed his fingers and hoped like hell that he would in fact wake up feeling just fine the next morning.

The docs hadn't been as convinced by that argument, of course, but that wasn't exactly surprising. 

Zach brought him dinner and checked in on him a few times through the afternoon, his voice low and steady when he asked from the doorway if Josh wanted anything, or about how he was feeling and all that. It would've been more alarming if Josh didn't know that was just how Zach sounded all the time anyway, and the monotone was honestly a lot more familiar to him after a few months living together than the frantic "oh fuck, Andy, are you—?" that Zach had blurted out when Josh crumpled to the ice beside him while Zach had been trying to shove him away from Korpi's pads. 

Josh's head was pounding, yeah, but he'd almost felt worse about how much it'd clearly scared everyone else to see him get hurt.

But as boring as lying there in the dark with no music and nothing to watch or play was, he knew that the more he kept quiet and did as he was told, the better the chances were that he'd be right back out there with them all again soon enough. 

So Josh kept his eyes closed and daydreamed idly, and tried to nap, and kept telling himself that his head would stop hurting again any second now.

And at some point, he fell asleep.

And when he woke up the next morning, he felt a surge of pleased vindication, because he didn't just feel better, he felt fucking _great_. Score one for following doctors orders, he thought: it probably wasn't a concussion after all then. 

Maybe, he thought, they'd even let him play that night after all, if he did well on the baseline tests and all that jazz, and Josh was in a really great mood as he rolled out of bed and padded into the shower, and he felt great right up until he was toweling dry.

Toweling off was not actually the problem in and of itself, of course, but the point where the mirror above his sink stopped being so fogged up was.

Josh wasn't even looking—shut up, Zach, he wasn't that vain about his hair or anything like that—but he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye and that made him turn to look properly and then he dropped his toothbrush in the sink with a clatter because—what the fuck?

He looked different.

Like, not that he looked like someone else or something like that, but it was almost as disconcerting as that would have been, he thought, because his hair was definitely different, and his face looked subtly different, and he couldn't even begin to imagine how that could have happened _overnight_.

Luckily, Josh had seen every terrible Disney movie about this kind of situation that ever existed, so the first thing he did was get his phone out and check what the date was.

**January, 2018**

His passcode was still the same, but his phone looked bigger and newer, and it was apparently just over _two years later_ than he thought it should be.

He didn't drop his phone, but it was close. 

How bad a fucking hit to the head did he take?

He looked up the last couple years worth of NHL results—he was at least probably still a Blue Jacket since it was clearly the bathroom in his apartment in Columbus—and so he was, but wow, the rest of the team was very different. 

And both of those pieces of information were the only reason he didn't drop his phone when he walked out into the kitchen to find not Zach—who would also probably look different, and had gotten a pretty gnarly scar according to the articles Josh had quickly skimmed about how their streak had ended up back in 2016—but instead, a younger-looking guy who broke into a broad grin as soon as he saw Josh.

"Look who finally woke up," he said, and Josh added 'French-Canadian' to his mental description and managed, just barely, to add enough clues together to pull "Pierre-Luc" from his hurried perusal of the current roster.

"Hey," Josh said carefully. He wasn't sure what the situation was, and he probably didn't want to confess to this whole amnesia deal right now if all it was gonna get him was a quick trip to the docs and not, as his phone had so helpfully informed him, the chance to play the Pens later that night.

"You slept forever," Pierre-Luc complained, "and you don't have any food, what the fuck, Josh."

Well, okay, some things hadn't changed then, Josh thought. So the rookie was living with him instead of Zach, cool, that was fine, and they still hadn't figured out how to stock a refrigerator instead of just ordering in, probably less cool but honestly Josh had bigger problems and also he was getting paid pretty decent money now so, like, whatever.

It was fine.

What was less fine was that Pierre-Luc closed the fridge door again—maybe he was hoping if he looked a second time he'd find food? Josh couldn't say he hadn't done the same occasionally—and then walked right over to Josh and laid a casual kiss right on his mouth, wrapping an arm around him in one smooth move and sticking his hand down the back of Josh's pants.

Josh wasn't ashamed to admit that he squawked and pulled back, because wait, what?

Pierre-Luc seemed totally unbothered by Josh acting out of character—oh fuck, Josh wondered frantically, would it have been in-character to kiss him back?? 

He was pretty hot, all big and muscled and wearing a thin t-shirt that, hey, Josh was pretty sure was actually his, thank you very much and wow, okay, the longer he looked the more sense the whole situation was making, but also the last time Josh had thought about it he had a very strong policy about not hooking up with dudes on his team.

"Fine, I will go brush my teeth," Pierre-Luc said, cheerfully philosophical about it, and he casually swatted Josh's ass with his free hand before heading back into Josh's bedroom. "Order us breakfast!" he yelled over his shoulder, and Josh, bemused but not entirely without initiative, picked up the phone to do just that.

* * *

By the time Pierre-Luc—did Josh call him that every time? Did he have a nickname? Why weren't any of these questions things that Josh could google in a hurry?—came back, Josh had at least ordered breakfast for the two of them, figuring that two of whatever he'd get for himself was going to be more than enough food.

He snuck another look at Pierre-Luc, and tried not to let himself focus on how that brief press of his body against Josh's had felt. He hoped he had ordered enough food, actually—Pierre-Luc was a pretty big guy too.

"Man, Jody must love you," Josh blurted out, and was horrified by himself for a moment but Pierre-Luc just laughed easily, like it was something he was well aware of and maybe even a running joke, and just said, "_Big_" in the most Anglo way he could possibly manage. And maybe Josh's body remembered what it was supposed to be doing too, because his lips tugged up in a reflexive grin.

"Food's coming?" Pierre-Luc asked, sitting on the stool right next to Josh, just pressing his knee gently against Josh's thigh. Part of Josh was a little disappointed—now that he was expecting it, he wouldn't have minded seeing where that kiss was gonna go—but also at least that didn't involve some degree of dishonesty and for a third point, or maybe fourth, he'd lost track—anyway, he was pretty much starving and he was kind of dying for their breakfast to get there as well.

"Yeah," Josh said. "Like fifteen minutes, I think? When do we have to leave again?"

He could probably guess when they needed to be at the arena for meetings and all that, but it seemed safer to ask. And he was going to do his damnedest to just follow Pierre-Luc around until he had a better idea of what he was supposed to be doing, and then he could revisit the issue.

Actually, fuck, there was an idea: Josh didn't want to talk to the medical staff, but he could sure as hell talk to Zach.

Thank god he'd already checked that Zach was still in Columbus too.

* * *

Josh got through breakfast with Pierre-Luc unscathed, and then got into an extended makeout session in the front hall while they were both dragging their heels on actually leaving.

Well, he didn't just 'get through that', it was actually pretty fucking fun, and Josh was mostly just cursing himself for being too much of a professional to try to claim to be sick so he could drag Pierre-Luc back to bed.

He'd ducked back into his own bathroom after breakfast to brush his teeth and realized, belatedly, that there were two toothbrushes in there, and that his bed was messed up enough that it was pretty clear that more than one person had been sleeping in there.

So maybe the rookie wasn't living with him so much as he was… _living_ with him? Or, heck, maybe he was just a regular sleepover guest, Josh wasn't judging anyone, and not just because he was half of the pair concerned.

Either way, he didn't have much of a moment of privacy to himself until well after practice, and no time to really digest all of the new information that was flooding in either. He had at least worked out that Pierre-Luc was just Luc most of the time—Josh had kept his ears open in the locker room and was feeling a bit more solid on nicknames for all of the new guys, and it seemed like they tended to switch between that and PL for him. 

The room hadn't changed as much as he might have thought or feared, at least. Most of the guys were still familiar faces, and Josh felt pretty comfortable in there.

No one seemed to notice anything off about him, either, which was almost more important.

He managed to get Zach's attention right before they were all free to get out of there; caught his eyes and jerked his shoulder towards once of the trainers rooms with an eyebrow raise that he figured had at least an 80% chance of Zach knowing what he meant.

Zach gave him a blank face right back, but he followed Josh all the same.

* * *

"What's up?" Zach said, leaning against the door and fixing Josh with a look.

Josh… tried not to squirm. When had Zach gotten better at this?

"So I maybe have a problem," he started.

Zach raised an eyebrow.

"So remember when we went on that streak and didn't lose for, like, a month?"

"Yeah," Zach said, giving Josh the most minute of frowns, which was actually about ten times more expression than Josh had been expecting. Wow, you totally lose all memory of a year or two and everyone changes on you. 

"Yeah, so I remember it like was yesterday."

Zach just kept looking at him.

Josh needed to be more specific, apparently. 

"I mean, I literally remember it like it was yesterday in that, like, day before yesterday we won the tenth game and went out and got drinks after and came home and passed out, and okay, sure, I kinda hit my head in practice yesterday, but this morning I felt fine and everything was pretty great, and then I got out of bed and you don't live there anymore and there's a cute guy in my kitchen who I've never even seen before?"

Josh's voice had, perhaps, gotten a little higher by the end of that sentence. He was going through a lot, okay?

Zach was still just looking at him, but he looked a bit more concerned, now. Josh just hoped he didn't decide to be super responsible and tell the docs or, possibly worse, the guys wearing letters. 

"Cute guy?" Zach said, and great, that was the part he was going to pick up on? "Who'd you pick up last night then?"

"Uh," Josh said. Shit, was Luc even out? Was _Josh_ out? He thought Zach knew he was bi, at least. 

"I'm kidding," Zach said, "I assume it was Luc, unless you two have gotten really adventurous about threesomes or whatever. Why are you having this conversation with me instead of with him or with someone who can give you a fucking MRI?"

"I don't… want to?" Josh said.

Zach sighed. "So why am I in here?"

"I wanted to ask you, uh, what was going on with everything, since I figured you would actually tell me."

Zach sighed more heavily, and then sat down on one of the massage beds, leaning back on his hands and said, "Okay, fine, what do you need?"

"When did you move out?" Josh asked promptly. It wasn't the most critical question by any means, but he was curious. 

Zach shrugged a shoulder at him. "Beginning of the season? I wanted some more space, and Brad was moving up here too so we got a place." Zach paused. "Oh yeah, and Brad moved up here."

"Yeah, I got that the first way you described it," Josh said, giving Zach an eye-roll right back.

He fidgeted a bit before sitting down opposite Zach, trying to figure out how to ask the next thing. At least it wasn't going to be a surprise to Zach, it seemed. 

"And how long has Luc been, uh—"

"Luc?" Zach asked, and Josh definitely knew him well enough to see the evil gleam in his eye. Great, more chirping, just what Josh needed. "Well, Torts shortened it to Luc pretty much straight off the bat and everyone else followed suit, except for when we remember to call him PL. But he seems to like you calling him Luc."

Josh found a handy scrap-end of athletic tape and threw it at Zach.

"You know that's not what I'm asking."

"I don't know details," Zach protested. "Just, you guys have clearly been hooking up for a while and he lives with Savvy but, like, he's not home a whole lot."

"And everyone knows?"

"In the room, yeah," Zach said. He let that sit for a moment. "You're not subtle, Andy, we kind of couldn't miss it." 

"Oh," Josh said. It wasn't all that surprising, really, he knew he'd never had the best poker face about, well, anything. It was honestly miraculous he'd gotten as far through this day as he had.

"Anything else?" Zach asked. "I assume you have, like, Google and figured out most of everything else already."

"Well yeah, just—you know the kind of things that are not really on, like, NHL dot com or whatever."

"Yeah, like you banging our rookie," Zach said, not quite as quietly as Josh would have preferred. 

"Zach!"

"Sorry," said Zach, with perhaps half an ounce worth of sincerity. "You should tell him, though."

"I can't," Josh said.

"—I mean, I get why you don't want everyone to know," Zach said, and Josh could tell that now he was being absolutely serious, picking his words carefully. Zach, Josh had found out that morning, had taken a puck to the face in the playoffs, gone down so hard that every one of his teammates on the ice had clearly known he was badly hurt immediately and freaked the fuck out accordingly, and then he'd insisted on coming right back out to play the rest of regulation. Zach wasn't gonna even try a 'do as I say, not as I do' approach, Josh guessed. 

"I do, I get it, I just—he's your boyfriend, man, and you're kind of lying to him if you don't."

Josh felt his stomach twist at that, and he wanted to argue, but he couldn't; there wasn't an honest argument there. He was. He would be lying, if he didn't tell Luc that he didn't remember the last 18 months, that he didn't remember _Luc_, that he didn't know how or when they'd gotten together, or why, or even what kind of a future they might have.

"Fuck, I hate when you're right," Josh said. 

It was almost as bad as admitting that life was actually better when they cleaned up after themselves as scrupulously as Zach wanted them to, except worse because there was no guarantee that telling Luc what was going on was going to have as neutral-to-good an outcome as just remembering to empty the fucking dishwasher more than once a week. 

"You're welcome," Zach said, and vanished out the door. 

Josh stared after him for a while, trying to resign himself to the necessary course of action. And then remembered that at least he was probably going to get to kiss Luc some more, so it wasn't _all_ bad.

* * *

Luc followed him back to the car after practice, too, cheerfully tossing his bag into the back with Josh's stuff and settling into the front seat like this was something they did every day, and for all Josh knew, maybe it was.

"Lunch?" Luc asked, looking hopeful, and Josh's stomach growled like it'd been just waiting for the appropriate cue, so with a vivid memory of his mostly empty fridge, he drove to one of his and Zach's favorite lunch spots. He'd been crossing his fingers it was still there, and it was, so score one for him.

Score two was probably coming up pretty fast, because by the time Luc had demolished his own lunch, his hand had transferred to Josh's thigh and started getting decidedly not suitable for public consumption, so Josh wound up bolting the last few mouthfuls of his meal and dragging Luc back to the car before one or the other of them did something they'd both regret.

Well, that their agents would probably regret. Josh wasn't real good at that whole self-denial thing. 

He'd called that one accurately enough—they only just made it inside Josh's apartment before Luc pounced and walked him right up against the wall to kiss him until Josh felt like his head was spinning—but in the good way this time. Josh kissed him back with good will, let his hands settle at Luc's sides and hold on, but when Luc's palm started sliding further south Josh made an involuntary sound of protest and pulled away.

"Yeah, yeah," Luc said, seeming remarkably unsquashed and entirely good-natured about the whole thing. "We should just nap. Gotta keep all the gas in the tank for tonight, eh?"

Josh hoped that he hadn't become one of those guys who refused to get off on a game day for superstitious reasons; it seemed like the most self-defeating thing possible, but right then and there he'd take the out. He didn't feel right doing anything more with Luc before leveling with him, and he didn't think starting a conversation with "so I don't remember the last, like, year and a bit" was going to end well for him if he was talking to his—boyfriend? Probably boyfriend?

Zach really could've been more helpful, Josh mused, sulking just a little as he followed Luc back to his bedroom, and the two of them quietly stripped off and settled in to lie down. 

He'd thought maybe he would have trouble sleeping; he was certainly going around and around in circles inside his own head enough to keep himself awake, but it seemed like he'd hardly laid down before he was out like a light. There was something so comforting about having Luc sprawled on his belly beside him, one arm shoved under the pillow in a way that made Josh's neck hurt just looking at him, breathing slow and steady, his other hand stretching across, thumb tucked possessively into the waistband of Josh's shorts. It was warm and grounding, and as he came to consciousness to the familiar tone of his phone alarm, Josh just lay there grinning stupidly for a few seconds before actually shutting the sound off.

"C'mon already," Luc said, somehow already on his feet and out of bed, and god, he woke up that quickly? Josh was a little afraid all of a sudden that he was sleeping with a _morning person_, and that was frankly almost as alarming as finding out he was hooking up with a teammate. 

Josh sighed gustily, and then jumped as Luc leaned over and smacked his ass, a healthy swat that stung more than it actually hurt.

"Ha, you don't always see that coming," Luc said with some satisfaction, and that was—definitely a running joke, or argument, or possibly foreplay? 

Josh had slept well, but he didn't think he could have had enough sleep to deal with this whole situation easily even if he'd taken the rest of the week to do it.

Rather than try to take his own part in an unfamiliar argument and run the risk of screwing it up, Josh followed suit in getting up and starting to get ready. Luc didn't protest at all, so that was clearly a common enough option as well. 

Good to know. 

His shirts were hanging where he'd last seen them in his closet, a few more of them now than there'd been when he and Zach moved in, and there were ties neatly hanging off a fixture beside them, a few of them familiar and some new. Josh ran the silk through his fingers and picked one that was the same color as Luc's eyes. 

For luck, he thought. 

That one indulgence done, he let himself sink into his normal game day habits for the rest of the afternoon, no time to think of anything else, and the two of them got themselves ready in what was clearly a well-practiced routine.

* * *

"Getting some tonight, eh Andy!" Boone crowed, and slapped Josh on the ass as he walked past to his own stall, and Josh could not wipe the grin off his own face.

It was only two points—a goal and an assist—but it'd been enough to get them the win, and he'd felt like he was flying out there.

The Pens probably wouldn't agree with that assessment, after Josh had knocked at least two guys on their asses in the second, and that had to sting almost as much as a loss. Josh grinned some more at that thought, and accepted compliments and shoulder pats and at least one more swat at his ass—thanks, Dubi—as the rest of the guys tromped back into the dressing room. 

It felt good to be on the winning side of the ledger again, the whole room buzzing with it. The last time Josh _remembered_ playing the Pens they'd romped to a 7 goal win, but he'd gleaned from what guys said earlier in the day—and a hasty Google search when no one was looking at him too closely—that Jackets-Pens games had not been nearly as much fun for the CBJ side in the time that had actually passed since then. 

He stole a glance in Luc's direction just to make sure he wasn't worried about the fact that half the team seemed to be well aware of whatever was happening between them, but Luc just shot him a broad grin back and did something with his eyebrows that Josh had no trouble as translating to mean something very dirty.

His fingers fumbled at the buttons on his shirt before he got himself together again. 

Well, he might not entirely remember everything that had happened in the current year but his body knew damn well what Luc was promising, and it was very on board with getting there as soon as fucking possible.

And Josh liked that idea a lot, maybe a little too much. He didn't know how serious he was about Luc, but 'people know' and 'his clothes are hanging up in my closet' were two pretty good hints that the answer was closer to 'a lot' than it was to anything more casual. 

But that also meant it was probably even more important that Josh level with him—and soon.

* * *

Josh and Luc got out of Nationwide without too much additional chirping—or at least, they gave as good as they got until Josh caught the opportunity to throw Murrs to the wolves over his half-assed attempt at growing a beard and escaped in the general mayhem. 

It'd been maybe twelve hours, but Josh already knew that Luc wore an easy grin more often than he didn't; broadly delighted by life, cheerful, affectionate and enthusiastic. 

He'd been beaming ever since they'd come off the ice, satisfied and smirky, and after having watched him sail through the opposing D like they were tissue paper, infuriating them and throwing hits and chirps alike by turns, all Josh wanted to do was taste some of that for himself.

"Feelin' it tonight, eh?" Luc said, and on the surface it was just a comment, but there was an undertone that made Josh's hair stand on end, that snuck under his skin and made some promises that Josh really hoped he was planning on keeping. 

And it felt familiar, almost like this was a conversation they had every time. And Josh hadn't had time to see much about how they'd been playing lately, so maybe they did. Maybe winning got Luc hot, and Josh sure as hell wasn't going to complain about _that_.

And he had felt good out there. 

It'd been so good to feel sure of himself; healthy and right with the world, like he was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. 

Kind of like kissing Luc had felt, now that he thought about it more.

"Something like that," Josh said, hoping that he wasn't about to torpedo things between them. 

Luc didn't push further, but Josh caught a few sidelong glances as they drove, enough to make him certain that Luc had picked up on something. 

They ditched their coats and everything else they were carrying right after getting in the door, and Josh realized he couldn’t put it off any more, not considering the way Luc was stalking towards him, with hot purpose in his eyes.

“I, uh, need to talk to you for a second first,” Josh said. 

Luc froze, swallowed hard and then Josh could see the way he took a second to calm down, could practically hear the way Luc had to be telling himself not to expect this was going to be something bad, even as he braced for it. Fuck, that was the last thing Josh wanted to do to him.

“It’s not bad,” Josh said, and then he thought about head injuries a bit more and had to admit, “At least, it’s not bad for you.”

“Please just say it already, then,” Luc said, concern warring with unhappiness.

Josh considered asking if he wanted to take this conversation to the couch, but that would just be delaying again, this seemed like the sort of uncomfortable, too-real conversations that always wound up happening in weird places; in the front seat of a parked car, on the porch of a friend’s house after dark, halfway up the stairs to the roof—Josh’d had more of those than he could put a number to, and apparently this was going to add one more, standing awkwardly in his front hall, toque in hand and staring dumbly into Luc’s eyes, tongue-tied and useless.

“I’m fine,” he started, because that was probably the critical part, wasn’t it? “I just, uh. Woke up this morning and kind of had weird amnesia?”

“What,” Luc said flatly, and the warmth that had suffused his expression chilled in an instant, and Josh tensed up in response.

“I sort of don’t remember the last, uh. Eighteen months? But some of it’s coming back already,” he said, and it was, it was just—very slow. He’d remembered what his car looked like, at least, that was a start. And he still knew everything he’d known before, and his body remembered the plays they’d been running in the game, like it just needed him to jog his memory first. 

“And you’re not getting checked out by doctors why?” Luc asked.

Josh shrugged.

“Everything seems to make sense, and I don’t feel bad at all, just—a little behind the times. I think it’ll come back again pretty fast, and Zach said I seemed normal yesterday.” Luc was probably a better judge of that, Josh thought belatedly; he should have asked him about that too.

“I don’t think you hit your head yesterday at all,” Luc said, “Not unless you were sleep walking and I missed it.”

“That’d be a first,” Josh confirmed. “Besides, it would’ve woken you up, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Luc started to say. “Wait, if you don’t remember—how did you know me?”

Josh shrugged again. “I didn’t? But it felt, uh. Right. When we kissed. So I figured, well.”

Luc rolled his eyes theatrically. “Somehow this is exactly what I’d expect you to do and say? But if you don’t remember in the next couple of days we will talk to the team doctors, okay?”

That was a compromise Josh could live with, even if it also meant getting yelled at for being a dumbass by however many people wanted to, which could actually go as far as Jarmo if he was unlucky. But it was the best compromise he was going to get, and he might not remember a lot about Luc but he knew that much.

“Okay, deal,” Josh said. He gave Luc a few more minutes to think it all over, watching the tiny frown that was drawing his brows together, waited until the troubled expression left the warm brown eyes that Josh was pretty sure he’d spent a borderline embarrassing amount of time staring into and pining over. Josh had a pretty definite type, and Luc was exactly it, right down to the height and the way that Josh thought he could maybe push him around a bit in bed, if he was into that. Josh sure as fuck was. He wasn’t quite reckless enough to ask just what their sex life so far included at this point in the confessional conversation, though. 

He was so busy wondering when he or Luc had actually first made a move on each other that he didn’t notice the point at which Luc clearly decided that he was done with the whole standing around part of the evening. 

"So you wanna fool around, then?" Luc asked, having apparently finally digested all of what Josh had told him.

Josh blinked. He hadn't quite been expecting that response.

"I—really?"

Luc looked at him like Josh was the one who was being confusing. "You just said you don't remember us getting together but you like me anyway, and you're still the same dude I dragged into Dubi's basement to fool around with at Christmas,” and that answered that question, Josh thought, “so, like, as long as you're into it, why not?"

"I mean, I guess," Josh said. "I just didn't think you'd be into it if I'm all—fucked up or whatever."

Luc shrugged at him. "You're still Josh," and that, apparently, was that.

Josh wasn't sure that should have been good enough but he also wasn't going to look a gift-Luc in the mouth, or at least he really liked the idea of doing a lot of things to Luc's mouth, so, well, fuck it, he was going to go with it.

He leaned in to kiss Luc again, honest this time, and Luc opened up to him right away, kissed back easily, his eyes closed and lashes dark against his cheeks.

Josh felt his heart lurch in his chest in a way that felt faintly familiar, looking at him, and thought, ‘Oh,’ before shutting his own eyes to focus on kissing him back and not whatever inconvenient feelings he was definitely starting to develop. 

It was easy to spend a lot of time like that, just making out some more, Luc's big hand on the back of his neck holding him close. 

"You wanna go to bed?" Luc asked, fingertips rubbing circles into Josh's scalp, nails scratching gently over the short hair there. "Cos I wanna go to bed."

"Yeah," Josh agreed, too turned on to be any more eloquent. "Let's fuckin'—do this."

Luc snorted quietly, but there was no hesitation as he followed Josh into the bedroom, or when he started shedding his clothes, dropping them in a neat pile on top of the dresser before crawling under the covers to wait for Josh.

Josh got caught up in looking for a minute; caught out yet again but the half-familiar shape of him, the glimpse of the long muscles of his thighs, the jut of his hip, the inviting smirk playing along his lips. 

"C'mon Andy," Luc said, and Josh did; stripped off his own clothes in a hurry and scrambled towards the bed, slid under the blanket and rolled on top of Luc.

"Hey," he said, and leaned down to kiss Luc again, crushing their mouths together, slipping him some tongue while he ran his hands over Luc's body.

"We're good at this," Luc assured him, touching him right back, soothing and heating him up all at the same time, curling a cheeky hand right around the back of Josh's thigh, sliding up to squeeze his ass, thumb digging into the muscle.

Josh bucked against him, ground down to get some friction on his dick and then arched back to remind Luc that he could move his hands too, thank you very much.

"Oh, you wanna go right back to expert mode, huh?" Luc teased, his thumb catching on the rim of Josh's hole, pressing in ever so faintly. Josh shuddered, felt his dick jerk against Luc's belly, smearing pre-come between them. 

"I have some weird-ass amnesia about the last two years," Josh said, trying to sound patronizing but landing somewhere breathless and turned on instead. "Not a complete loss of sexual experience."

"Well then," Luc said, reaching over to dig through Josh's nightstand and dropping lube and a condom on the sheet by his hip. "Impress me, then."

Josh opened his mouth, realized he had absolutely nothing, and closed it again, trying to pretend like he didn't see the smirk on Luc's face at having successfully stumped him. 

And honestly, there was more than a little part of him that wanted to do just that; that didn't know what he'd done with Luc in the past but wanted to blow his mind all the same, wanted to make sure Luc had seen the very best parts of Josh that there were.

It was probably kind of pathological or whatever to feel competitive about beating _yourself_, but Josh was a professional hockey player and _that_ was familiar territory at least. 

What didn't hurt his chances was that as far as Josh could remember, he hadn't picked up in what felt like weeks, but he was also pretty sure those extra couple of years of real life experience were going to turn into a bit of extra stamina. As a combination, that was going to mean it shouldn’t be over too quickly, and there wasn't anyone who was going to complain about _that_. 

And even more importantly… god did he ever want Luc to fuck him.

"I mean I guess I can do all the hard work for you," Josh said, playing it off like it was something casual, flipping the lid up on the lube and squeezing a generous dollop into his hand, rubbing his fingers together until they were well coated. He lay down again, hiking his knees up and twisting so he could reach, running his hand wetly over his balls—shuddering at the touch—and down to press at his hole, thumb pushing in to the first knuckle.

Luc hissed a breath in sharply, staring eagerly at him. Josh raised an eyebrow and managed to stay cool, "Something you like?"

"That's fucking hot, Josh," Luc said, his gaze stuck on Josh's hands while Josh squirmed around, gave himself a quick stroke from the base of his cock to the head, too turned on to deny himself completely. He was leaking, too, a spurt of pre-come spooling off his dick as he touched himself. 

"You about to do anything about it?" Josh asked, daring him, twisting his hips and arching his back in an attempt to get a better angle, fingers sinking in to the second knuckle.

It was easy to see, looking at Luc, just how turned on he was, how into it he so obviously was. He wasn't blushing so much as he was just red all over, and Josh was pretty sure he could feel the heat bleeding off Luc's skin even from that distance.

And when his eyes kept going down, well, it was impossible to miss how incredibly hard he was, either. 

Luc's dick was flushed dark with blood, shiny and damp at the head, bobbing up like he was straining to touch Josh all over. Josh swallowed hard, and had a sudden clear and vivid image—or maybe it was a memory?—of what it would be like to suck his dick, and fuck, he wanted that, wanted the weight of Luc in his mouth, pressing down on his tongue.

But that wasn't what they were there for, wasn't what Luc had asked for or what Josh was on the verge of begging for, and Josh wanted to feel Luc inside him even more than he wanted that.

And he didn't want to fucking wait any longer, either.

"Luc, please, please fuck me," he said, hoping the pleading in his voice and eyes was enough.

It must have been, because Luc positively dove for him, crushed their mouths together again and just about broke land-speed records in getting his hands on Josh's ass. His thumb rubbed around Josh's hole, tugging on the rim at first and then popping right in with a little pressure, the slide eased by lube and the—_half-assed_ was probably not the right word for it, although it made Josh choke back a spurt of laughter—way that Josh had been touching himself. 

Luc seemed happy with whatever he was checking, just hummed and then reached back up over Josh's shoulder to grab the condom, and oh, yeah, this was definitely happening. 

"I got you," Luc said, and Josh felt a little silly; he was the veteran, the guy who'd been here and done all of this before—all of it, including sex with Luc, for fuckssake—but there he was needing the reassurance, and he couldn't pretend like it didn't mean something to him to get it.

"I know," Josh said softly, and he let Luc manhandle him; let Luc shift him around on the bed until everything was exactly right.

And then Luc climbed into his lap and instead of going right for Josh's dick or his ass like Josh half-expected, Luc reached up and cupped Josh's jaw in his hands, and leaned in to kiss him again. It was soft, and sweet, and lingering; Luc's taste all that Josh could think about. And then Luc shifted his hips and pressed right up against Josh, and just like that, it was zero to sixty, whoa to go, and Luc's dick pushing hot and hard inside Josh, everything he hadn't even had time to realize he was missing.

"Fuck," Josh hissed, arching up, trying to push back, push down, trying to get Luc to move faster, harder, something. He felt good and he knew he could feel better and he wanted it right then and there. "Come on, Luc."

"Yeah, that worked out for you last time, didn't it?" Luc teased, but his hips snapped forward anyway, sinking deeper into Josh until there was nowhere else to go, nothing but heat and motion. 

Luc didn't give him much of a breather then; seemed like he'd figured Josh had used up all the patience he needed while they were getting started. Without missing a beat, Luc started fucking him in earnest: short hard thrusts that had Josh seeing stars, his nerves lighting up like a bad 80s movie, hot pink and vicious yellow and a curling acid green, sputtering and misfiring until he felt like his whole body was on fire and he was going to die or come or both. 

Josh could tell it wasn't just him being affected, though; Luc was breathing hard and shaking, jaw tight, shoulders tense. He was just barely hanging on to control, his hands clenched on Josh's hips, biting into the flesh hard enough that Josh figured he was going to have bruises again. 

Not that he minded, of course; it was fun to see the marks, hidden in plain sight among the ones from hockey. 

"Come on, please," Josh said, voice thick, as he pushed back against Luc, begging for it with every atom of his body as well as his words. "Luc, I gotta, oh fuck—"

"So fucking hot," Luc panted, the words choppy and disjointed, and he ground harder against Josh, froze in place and just let them both feel it. "Fuck," he said, and reached over to get his hand on Josh's dick, slippery with sweat and lube and come.

It took about six seconds of Luc touching him to send Josh over the edge, like a white hot bolt of pure desire that made his head spin, and Josh came, all over them both, shuddering through it while Luc held him.

* * *

_Make a performance check._

1-12

13 or higher

* * *

[]

"Are you, can I?" Luc asked desperately, and Josh's high school French was definitely good enough for that, or maybe it was just that he'd been having some very specific practice recently; regardless, he knew exactly what Luc was saying. 

When Josh felt like he had full control of his limbs and his senses again, he realized Luc was trembling like he'd just finished being bag-skated, so wound up from what Josh was doing to him even as he blew Josh's mind. And there was no way Josh was going to make him wait any longer. 

"Yeah," Josh said immediately, without even a trace of doubt or hesitation. Luc always made him feel so good, and Luc was close, like Josh couldn't understand how he wasn't coming already kind of close, and right in that moment Josh didn't want anything more than to feel Luc lose it.

Luc grunted, pulled back and then slammed his hips forward, thrusting hard against Josh, the head of his dick nudging Josh's prostate and making him flail weakly, oversensitive but still too into it to even dream of stopping. 

He could feel Luc come then, more by the way he froze, the way his body vibrated like high-tension wire for a couple of seconds before relaxing all at once, jerking against Josh, and prompting a feeble twitch out of his own dick, as his body tried its best to come again before he was ready. 

Luc let his head drop onto Josh's shoulder, hiding his face. He was breathing warm and damp against Josh's skin for long moments until he could get himself under control again, before carefully pulling out, cleaning them both up quickly and matter-of-factly before curling himself around Josh again, under the covers. 

Josh stretched out, worked his ankles and shoulders, fighting the urge to just relax right back into the mattress and fall asleep again. God, he felt good. It was always good with Luc, but that had been pretty spectacular even by their standards.

He shifted a little to pre-empt the twinge in his hip that he knew would start up if he didn't, an annoying leftover from the hit he'd taken last week, and grimaced in anticipation of the split-second of pain it cost to shift into a better position.

And then he stopped to check in with his own thoughts, with his memories of how this day had started, and froze, one hand reaching out to curl automatically over Luc's hip and pull him close again.

"Holy shit," he said, the words hardly louder than a murmur.

"What," Luc said sleepily against him, tucking his knees against Josh's and also doing his best to avoid the giant bruise on Josh's side. "Okay there, Josh?"

"Yeah," Josh said, "I am. I really, really am."

"Okay," Luc said, and he cracked one eye open to look up at Josh, a faint frown creasing his brow. "Why do you look weird?"

"I don't look weird, you look weird," Josh replied on automatic. 

"No, really, though," Luc said. "You're okay? Your head doesn't hurt or something?" He bit his lip, like he was seriously worried he might have hurt Josh, as if that was even a possibility. Like he hadn't just somehow done the exact opposite.

Josh swallowed the bubble of hysterical laughter that wanted to break free at that thought. "No, I'm good. Really good. Just as good as I was last week."

"Wait—" Luc started to say, sitting up and nearly braining himself as Josh did the same thing. He rubbed his head and gave Josh a pointed look. "Your jaw is made of, like, steel or something now?"

"Just regular bone," Josh replied, and then accelerated past that before either of them could get distracted by snickering like a twelve year old or going into an endless loop of Brooklyn 99 references. "But yeah, I remember last week now. I don't know what the fuck happened, but I'm back to normal."

Luc jabbed him in the chest with a finger that seemed much pointier than it had any right to. "That's what happened!"

"Excuse me?"

Luc smirked at him, and made a broad gesture with his hands to encompass the bed and the mess they'd made of it. "Fucking happened, and now you're back to normal!"

"Oh god no," Josh said, eyes widening. This was—they did not need this to be a thing, but if the look in Luc's eyes was any indication, it was absolutely going to be. "You did not—maybe it just needed like twelve hours to wear off!"

"My dick is _magic_," Luc said. "Please tell all your friends, or at least the hot ones that want threesomes."

"You got to that suspiciously fast," Josh told him, and added hurriedly, "Also your dick is not magic."

"Just like Cinderella!" Luc said, smug, crossing his arms over his chest, and Josh was, as usual, distracted for a split-second or two by how nice his arms looked, especially when he was flexing them.

"I think you mean Sleeping Beauty, but also I don't want to know what kind of fucked up fairy tales you read as a kid."

"Whatever, I fucked you back into 2018, now let's go get something to eat and talk about other fun things we can try when your hip feels better."

"You're not gonna let this go any time soon, are you?" Josh asked, pretty sure it was a rhetorical question. 

"Do you think this works on everything or just amnesia?" Luc asked, the light of unholy sex science starting to burn in his eyes, and Josh was going to cut that off right then and there, thanks.

"I am not volunteering to find out," he said. "Also, you realize you can't tell anyone about this, right?"

Luc pouted at him.

Josh was not going to cave, he _wasn't_. 

“Ugh, fine, you can tell Zach,” Josh said. “He already knows anyway.”

“Zach, who said last week he didn’t want to hear anything else about our sex life and that’s why he wasn’t staying in the guest room again even if Uber was surge pricing like crazy?”

“Oh, I forgot about that part,” Josh admitted, and Luc gave him the smuggest grin Josh could ever remember seeing him wear, even after he’d put three past the Flames netminder on the road, and just gestured at his dick before saying, “You need round two?”

Josh definitely wasn’t going to hear the end of this any time soon, and under the circumstances, he guessed he was okay with that.

* * *

[THE END](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20933117#work_endnotes)

* * *

[]

Josh started to let himself melt back against Luc before remembering that he hadn’t even come yet, Josh had to take care of him, just like—

Fuck, just like the last time they’d done this. The memory of which was now filed in Josh’s brain exactly where it was supposed to be, and the surge of elation at that overtook all his more intelligent impulses as he blurted out, "Holy shit, I can't believe that worked. I—fuck, I remember everything, how did getting fucked make me remember? Is your dick magic?" 

"You have to remember getting it last week too,” Luc panted, giving him a dirty look. Josh couldn’t blame him, really; at least Josh had gotten off already. Luc was still waiting, way more patiently than Josh thought he would have been able to, come to think of it. Luc shifted a little, gave him a toothy grin at the way it made Josh hiss and buck up underneath him before he kept talking, the conversational tone of his voice entirely at odds with the tension thrumming through him. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say no, it's not my dick fixing your bizarre-ass memory loss thing, Josh." 

"I mean, you can't prove it's not, though," Josh argued. "My ass is evidence right here."

"This is the stupidest conversation I've ever while my dick is still in someone," Luc said, "and that bar is not low."

Josh made a face. "I somehow doubt that, surely Barzal has said dumber shit than this."

Luc shrugged in one fluid motion, and Josh tried not to visibly react to the way it made him move, made his dick drag exquisitely across the bundle of nerves inside him, made him want to arch up again under Luc and rub himself raw. "I mean, maybe. But you're not doing a great job of looking better right now."

"Fuck you," Josh said, not missing a beat, "I look way better than he does and you know it."

He flexed, too, just in case Luc had forgotten just how much Josh was benching these days, which had momentarily impressed even himself, while he'd been wandering around with that eighteen-month blindspot in his memory. 

Luc bit his lip, tightened his hands on Josh's hips instinctively, and Josh grinned up at him, wide and feral.

"Gotcha," he said, rolling his hips, and tearing a rough groan out of Luc. Oh yeah, he was ready to go again and Luc was somehow still waiting, fuck yeah, it was _on_.

"This doesn't mean you win the argument though," Luc said, but he didn't even believe his own side of it, if the way he was shifting to fuck Josh properly, moving slow and easy and so, so good was any indication at all. 

"I'm getting what I want, aren't I?" Josh said, and Luc didn't have much of an argument for that either, just snapped his hips forward and drove a groan out of Josh, which he was going to also consider to be the last word, which meant he won by default. 

And as the two of them collapsed into sweaty, messy, perfectly satisfied heaps, Josh thought to himself that really, they’d both won, and wasn't that the best possible outcome regardless.

* * *

[THE END](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20933117#work_endnotes)


End file.
